Rene Bond and friends make a Blanket statement about Southern California beach life.

It still sort of amazes us how many American porn movies made it all the way to Japan. Since pubic hair was illegal to show there back then, as was, needless to say, penetrative sex, the films would have been censored to local standards, making them a bit like cable softcore, but highly disjointed and very short. Yet the public must have craved these hacked up movies anyway because we have scores of Japanese posters for them. We hope to get around to sharing the entire group one day, but today we're focused on just this one—a promo for 1975's Beach Blanket Bango. While the title borrows from the classic teenybopper flick Beach Blanket Bingo, the movie is actually a sequel of sorts to a 1974 smut film called High School Fantasies, with most of the same cast members, though in different roles.Rene Bond is the star attraction in this Southern California 1960s style sex romp but she doesn't star on the poster. She's there, though. That's her in the right background in an Annette Funicello style wig. For some reason the position of honor on the poster is given to Cindy Taylor, who plays a bit role. But the poster is attractive anyway. It's yet another example of how seriously Japanese film distributors took their erotica. Posters for porn were fully as interesting and well designed as those for mainstream movies. But nice as it is, since Bond doesn't get a proper showing, we've given her one below. Beach Blanket Bango opened in Japan today in 1975.

If you visit this site a lot, you’re used to this—we promise to get back to something and then take forever to do it. But to our credit, we do eventually keep our promises. Today, we’re finally returning to that pile of Japanese x-rated promo posters we’ve accumulated (Japanese as in designed and printed in Japan, but to promote American movies). Above is a poster for a porn compilation entitled That’s Porno, released in 1979 and comprised strictly of sex scenes culled from various films, freed from the tyranny of plotlines and character development (just kidding—we live for plotlines and character development). You have to love the art, which consists of the lips of twenty-two x-rated actresses, some well known, such as Georgina Spelvin and Annette Haven (or Heaven, according to the text), and others virtually forgotten, like Karen Devin and Tina Louise (the other Tina Louise). Anyway, we have eight more posters below and relevant info.

Baby Face II, with Stacy Donovan, Candy Evans, and Taija Rae. Just to make sure Japanese audiences got the point, the word “sex” appears front and center. We’ve talked before about the usage of this English word on Japanese posters as a signifier and here you get another example.

Beach Blanket Bango, with Cindy Taylor and Rene Bond, 1975. Notice the word “fuck” at upper left. Again, is this more descriptive than the Japanese word for the same act, or is the English a signifier of decadence?

Expose Me, Lovely, with Annie Sprinkle, Jennifer Welles, and Jody Maxwell, 1976. The designers misspelled the word “expose,” instead putting “exporse,” but they did get “sex” right, and there’s “erection” right next to it, for good measure.

That’s all for today. We have about a hundred more of these, not all as interesting as this group, but sometime down the line we’ll pick out a few more worthy examples and share them. In the meantime, be sure to check our previous entries on this subject here, here and here.

American pop artist Andy Warhol, whose creations have sold for as much as 100 million dollars, dies of cardiac arrhythmia following gallbladder surgery in New York City. Warhol, who already suffered lingering physical problems from a 1968 shooting, requested in his will for all but a tiny fraction of his considerable estate to go toward the creation of a foundation dedicated to the advancement of the visual arts.

1947—Edwin Land Unveils His New Camera

In New York City, scientist and inventor Edwin Land demonstrates the first instant camera, the Polaroid Land Camera, at a meeting of the Optical Society of America. The camera, which contains a special film that self-develops prints in a minute, goes on sale the next year to the public and is an immediate sensation.

1965—Malcolm X Is Assassinated

American minister and human rights activist Malcolm X is assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City by members of the Nation of Islam, who shotgun him in the chest and then shoot him sixteen additional times with handguns. Though three men are eventually convicted of the killing, two have always maintained their innocence, and all have since been paroled.

1935—Caroline Mikkelsen Reaches Antarctica

Norwegian explorer Caroline Mikkelsen, accompanying her husband Captain Klarius Mikkelsen on a maritime expedition, makes landfall at Vestfold Hills and becomes the first woman to set foot in Antarctica. Today, a mountain overlooking the southern extremity of Prydz Bay is named for her.

1972—Walter Winchell Dies

American newspaper and radio commentator Walter Winchell, who invented the gossip column while working at the New York Evening Graphic, dies of cancer. In his heyday from 1930 to the 1950s, his newspaper column was syndicated in over 2,000 newspapers worldwide, he was read by 50 million people a day, and his Sunday night radio broadcast was heard by another 20 million people.

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